Top 10 Cities That Didn’t Exist in 1960

When you think of maps, you don’t usually think of them as fluid objects. However, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, it seems all kinds of mergers and separations have been cluttering up atlases on a near-yearly basis. And that doesn’t include all of the wars and disputed territories.

But this article is specific to cities that literally did not exist a mere 50 years ago. In a mere two or three generations, these cities went from almost nothing, to being huge population centers and important cogs of economic growth.

10. Incheon, South Korea

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The city of Incheon, in South Korea, is just miles from the North Korean border. With a population of nearly 3 million, it is the third largest city in South Korea. In 1994, the South Korean government, with a keen eye toward the future, decided to undertake a bold plan to reclaim land from the sea off the coast of Incheon, and build the world’s largest ubiquitous technological city. With a projected cost of $40 to 50 billion, the city has an estimated completion date of 2020, and hopes to accommodate up to half a million residents. The South Korean government is also trying to build the city within a strict green blueprint, which it may or may not meet.

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Thank you very much to everyone who read my article. (p.s. I did go back and forth on whether Brasilia, Brazil was close enough to the time frame. I think my source material had 1959 as the foundation date.)